#6 THE DECISION / MAKING MOVES NOT MOVIES

By J.J. Colagrande

Lollapalooza? Um. You think I care? I don’t. Man–I don’t even like crowds. And it’s getting hard for me to walk around in public. People recognize me. That stunt I pulled in New York turned out to be one of the highlights of the summer off-season. ESPN, talk radio, the New York papers, shit. It’s kind of out-of-control. Half of the country thinks I’m crazy for walking away from fame and money and glory, and some New Yorkers want my head yo–the other half of the country thinks I’m some new breed, take the higher ground, guru-athlete. I’m like huh? How did that happen? All I wanted was to figure this shit out on my own. Play by my own rules, you know, not my father’s rules. My rules. Meanwhile, all of a sudden, my phone’s off-the-hook. I’m still getting calls from the national press core, The Times, The Washington Post , all the glossy’s, Vanity Fair, GQ , Sports Illustrated , it’s crazy, son. Big dog agents from William Morris and ICM are blowing me up like telemarketers. Music producers are calling me. I’m not even playing. I got messages from Kanye, Pharrell, Cudi, Diplo, Chromeo and Duck Sauce all shouting about how they were feeling me walking away from basketball to follow my dreams. Pharrell Williams called me talking about if I want to make some music holla at him. Huh? Yo thank god Lebron pulled that dumb ass spectacle of an ESPN announcement about taking his talents to South Beach or me-walking-away-from-the-NBA would’ve been that much more of a summer story. Although it’s a double-edged sword cause now peeps are comparing me to Lebron saying I’m more selfless for walking away from the fame. Why was I being compared to Lebron? The only thing I had on my mind was finding the Scruffy Guy. I’d recognize that knuckle-headed motherfucker in a hot second. Melody Rain said there was a chance he might be at Lollapalooza. She said if there was a music festival, those guys weren’t too far behind. She said they’d either be inside the show or holed up in a hotel nearby. You can have fame, son. You can have money too. You can have America and Entourage and Eminem and Jay Z on the cover of Forbes with Warren Buffet. You can have Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton and TMZ and Extra and your own sneaker line. Just give me my best friend, alive. I wanted Thelonious. If there was a chance I could save my brethren, that’s all I cared about. So I walked around Lollapalooza, with my Yankees cap extra low and I played incognito. I was making moves, not movies, ya feel me? Yes. I stalked Museum Park for a scent, a trace of the trail of whom I hunted. The Scruffy Guy or his crew. And I didn’t stop. No. It was on, and we didn’t have any time for bullshit.